The puppies are doing great, turn 9 weeks old tomorrow. Need to sell them. When I watered the cows this afternoon, I throw the frizzbee for Anni, she is tireless, running and catching again and again, with the puppies trailing after her through the snow, biting at the frizzbee when she brings it back.
Very frustrating tonight, the milking machine had no vacuum so I couldn't use it to milk. I went and roused the cows out of Little Africa, they were both already lying down, probably as I gave them a whole lot of clean, fresh straw there earlier, brought them down to the barn which I had already set up, the salamander was heating away, but not enough vacuum to stay on the cows or suck milk. Buttercup has a little mastitis as I'm drying her up, so I've been taking 2 buckets for milk, one for the good milk from Dolly which goes to the herd-share owners and us, the other milk for the animals. Milking by hand takes much longer and they aren't used to having a bucket under them so they kick it.
I brought the vacuum pump and the attachments for the milking machine into the house basement so that they can thaw out and hopefully work tomorrow morning. It's bad enough that the teat dip and the udder wash freeze, but having the whole system pack up is more than annoying. I held the teat dip cup too close to the salamander heat and made a hole in it, oh dear, so have to hold my finger over it to make it work.
Last night our low was 1 degree F, today it warmed up to 23 degrees F, and is currently back down to 16. I'm tired of being cold. So is Herbie. That's something to be said about South Africa, the weather is great.
Made some feta cheese today, turned out all right. Had a wonderful shower tonight and as there is nothing to watch on the telly, am chatting with my cousin in Australia on Skype and finishing our taxes and the Dept of Ag survey.